Betrayal
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "After all, Rogue's been waiting for Sting to come to him." Sting tries to comfort Rogue after Frosch's death. It goes well for neither of them.


Rogue knows who it is coming down the hallway to his room well before Sting rounds the corner, minutes in advance of the blond mustering the nerve to say, "Rogue?" in the gentle voice people only ever use for those dying or mourning. It sounds all wrong in Sting's mouth - he should he laughing, teasing, smiling so Rogue can hear it without actually seeing his face. And he doesn't need the announcement of the other's presence, even if he doesn't turn to the door or offer any kind of a response.

After all, he's been waiting for Sting to come to him.

"Rogue," again, too gentle, careful and deliberately considerate until Rogue almost doesn't recognize the other's familiar voice. Footsteps over the floor, hesitation at the corner of the bed before Sting commits himself and comes around the corner to where Rogue is sitting on the mattress, hunched over his knees with his hands hanging limp and motionless, as they have been for what has been nearly a day.

He has been thinking. Physical movement has been superfluous to that.

Sting lifts a hand. Rogue can just see the movement in his peripheral vision, the fingers reaching to stroke his hair before Sting thinks better of the motion and withdraws his hand. He pauses, and for a moment Rogue things he's going to leave again. Some part of him wishes he would. Just because he knows, now, what he has to do doesn't mean he's looking forward to it.

But Sting doesn't leave. Rogue knew he wouldn't. He sits down on the bed instead, close enough that the dip of the mattress under the extra weight pushes him in until his leg is bumping Rogue's. Rogue can feel how tense the blond is, ready to pull back at so much as a flinch from Rogue, but he doesn't move, and after a minute some of the awkward strain fades as Sting relaxes.

"Lecter's not doing well," Sting offers after a moment. He sounds pained, now, worry easier to express when it's not directly for Rogue. "I have to fight to get him to eat, since -"

He cuts himself off but Rogue finishes for him. "Frosch."

Sting lets a lungful of air out all at once. "Yeah." Another awkwardly loaded pause. "Have you been sleeping?"

Rogue shakes his head without looking at Sting, without looking away from the wall in front of him. "I'm been thinking."

"Rogue." Sting sounds injured, now, Rogue can hear the tears prickling under his words. "You have to sleep sometime, it's been almost two days."

"I've been thinking," Rogue repeats. "About what happened. It was my fault."

A sharp, pained inhale. "It's not your-"

"It was my fault." Rogue takes a breath. He thought this would be harder to say, but the words are coming flat and monotone. It doesn't even hurt anymore. "I was supposed to protect him."

"You did everything-"

"No." He shakes his head again, physical rejection of whatever misunderstanding Sting is under. "I was supposed to protect him. I didn't."

"There was nothing you could have done." Sting sounds more like himself, the edge of aggression and emotion raising his voice into recognizability. "Are you even listening to me, Rogue?"

"It was a mistake," Rogue says, carefully and clearly. "I can't protect anyone."

"You _can_." A hand closes on Rogue's shoulder, a sharp jerk as if physical motion will shake his mental certainty. "You did, before, you've protected Frosch and Lecter and _me_, you protect me all the _time_, Rogue."

"But I can't." Rogue can hear the shadows gathering around his voice, the resonance of warning if only Sting knew to listen for it. But the hand on his shoulder isn't pulling away, the fingers are tightening instead, Sting holding himself in place so Rogue doesn't even have to. He does anyway, reaches up to grab at the blond's elbow without looking so they're clinging to each other as if that will grant them some stability.

Rogue knows better, now, than to trust that feeling.

"I can't protect you." Deep breath, steady voice. Everything is cold, everything is quiet except for a faint hum as if of static at the back of his thoughts. "I don't want to lose you but I can't protect you any more than I could Frosch."

"What are you _talking_ about-"  
>"I don't want it to be a surprise," Rogue says, and when he twists in towards Sting the shadow formed around his free hand drives into the other's body, past golden skin and the bottom edge of his shirt together.<p>

Sting reacts on impulse to the pain. He hisses, tries to flinch back, but Rogue is holding him in place, keeping him steady so his motion just spills crimson blood over Rogue's wrist and down to stain the sheets of the bed.

"_Fuck_" Sting wails, and it's part pain but mostly shock under his words, his free hand is clutching at Rogue's wrist and his other is seizing up on Rogue's shoulder like he's going to pull himself free that way. "What are you _doing_?"

"If I have to lose you I want to get it over with," Rogue says, the words he's rehearsed easy to say even though his lips are cold and clammy and Sting's eyes are wide with hurt and shock too fresh to show a sense of betrayal. They are very blue. Rogue has always loved Sting's eyes.

"You're not making _sense_," Sting gasps. At least he's stopped struggling. He's gone still, his fingers tense on Rogue's wrist as if to hold him still, his expression falling into a forced imitation of calm. "Let me _go_, Rogue, it's fine, we can _fix_ this."

"No." Rogue disregards Sting's hold, pushes sideways. There's another flood of blood, Sting's head tips back in involuntary reaction to the hurt, and this time he screams, his throat going raw and harsh on the sound.

"_Stop_," he says again, and his fingers go loose on Rogue's wrist. "Rogue, _stop_, I don't want to do this."

"I don't want to do this," Rogue says in unconscious echo. There's something in his throat, some tightness that won't go away. "I _have_ to, I can't stand to lose you."

"Oh fuck," Sting says. His eyes are liquid with tears, his mouth trembling more with misery than pain. He takes a shaky breath, coughs once. His mouth goes red with blood. "I'm so sorry."

He has his hand up against Rogue's face before the other can think to pull back. Rogue's defenses are down, he's not expecting the casual intimacy of a hand brushing his hair aside so Sting's thumb can rest against his cheekbone and his finger can touch at the outside corner of Rogue's eye. The contact is surprisingly gentle, Sting's fingers pressing warm in an echo of affection even as his eyes overflow and he hunches in around the bleeding injury Rogue has already inflicted.

Then he shuts his eyes, and bows his head, and Rogue realizes what he is going to do a second before his thoughts explode into white-hot light.

Maybe it's the realization that saves him. He has less than a heartbeat to react, less than the time of a thought to brace himself for the burst of light from Sting's fingertips. But he knows that attack, and the shadow in him knows that attack, and somewhere in the gap between _Rogue_ and _shadow_ there is a solution, a way to save himself for the close-range impact of Sting's abilities.

He doesn't realize, at first, what has happened. He's gasping in shock, a delayed reaction to the panic of a crisis, and Sting is slumped forward over him, and Rogue doesn't have to see his face to know the light has gone out of his eyes. Then he blinks, and there's something wrong, some usual movement that is lacking.

He lets his shadows fade away, catches Sting without thinking as he falls, supports the other's weight with one hand while he reaches up to touch his face. The scar is odd, wide and spread out across what had been his right eye but painless, just faintly warm like it's been warmed in the sun.

"What-?" Rogue starts without expecting an answer.

_You're welcome_.

It's a purr, a whisper from the back of his mind; it could be his own thought, if it weren't so utterly foreign as to send an involuntary shudder up his spine.

_Shadows make a good remedy for light. That would have killed you, otherwise. Dying together has a romantic charm doesn't it?_

Rogue knows that voice. It's distant, pieced together from lost memories and hazy post-battle recollections, but he knows that, has heard it during fights he doesn't recall and in his dreams, forming a whole sideways logic that has invaded his conscious mind without him realizing it.

_Good thing you have me. _Rogue blinks. There's damp across his cheek, tears he didn't realize he was crying spilling from his left eye, though his right eye - the entire right side of his face, in truth - remains cold and still like it's numb, or like it belongs to someone else. _But I don't need you anymore_.

There's a force pushing Rogue back, edging him backwards in his mind like he's stumbling towards a cliff, shoved by some inexorable and invisible thing. His hand is shaking, his mouth is open on what taste like sobs at the back of his throat, and then the force climbs into his skin, steadies his hand and eases his throat and shoves him back until his vision starts to slip from his control too. _Goodbye, Rogue._

The last thing Rogue loses, before the shadows take him, is the still weight of Sting's body against his shoulder.


End file.
